


Ghosts of Winterfell

by mandalbrot



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 05:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandalbrot/pseuds/mandalbrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Jon Snow has seen a ghost</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts of Winterfell

There are ghosts in Winterfell, Old Nan’s voice trembles in his dreams. To him these are visions meant to keep the Stark children awake at night, and he is anything but a Stark. The thing that frightens Jon Snow the most is not the ghosts lurking in the crypts, but the knowledge that as a man of one and ten he is alone. He knows it from the carefully hidden glances from Lady Stark, or from Robb’s innocent reminders that one day he’ll be lord of the castle one day. In his veins pumps the blood of the Starks, but he had never been considered family.

It’s in the smallest that he finds kin and a warm embrace. Arya Stark doesn’t understand what a bastard is, or why her mother chides her every time she needs away from her lessons to pelt snow balls at her brother. She is a small thing that doesn’t care about titles. To this small creature with her mussed up hair and devil may care grin Jon is family in everything but name.  
Arya’s echoing laughter can shut away the pain for hours, but in the end he is only left with silence.

There are days when Jon watches the Lady Stark dot upon her youngest boy, Brandon, and he thinks to himself what it would be like to have been played with by a mother. He closes his eyes and dreams of a woman with a young Snow, dancing around in the Godswood laughing. The woman would always call him her darling little boy and fill him to the brim with love. She would tell him tales of knights and all the things in the world he could be. In his dreams he isn’t a bastard. In his dreams he knows of a mother’s love and a true brother’s embrace. It’s spring in his dark winter. 

Mother never looks the same, each time he pictures her different, but she always bears the look of the north. The long stout face, the dark hair, but when she looks at him it fills them both with warmth. Sometimes in his deepest of dreams he dreams its Lady Stark herself picking him up, putting him on her knee, and mussing up his hair. In his dreams she is telling him stories of knights and how he may be a Lord one day, or even be a knight or commander in Robb’s armies. Then sometimes she would have violet eyes and look of the dragons long since past. Jon Snow had given his mother so many visages over the years that he could never settle on a name. 

The Lord Stark did his best to make him feel loved. The Lord of Winterfell began training him along side his son but out of the watchful eye of the Lady Stark. His presence in the castle was always felt, and he was kept out of her way. As a young thing he never understood why, and with each turn of the years he still doesn’t understand. She hates me, is the only thing he has known.  
A night comes, no different than any other in its bleakness in the dreary north, and he wakes in his room. The night covering his sanctuary so he cannot see a thing, but he swears he can hear humming. It’s this night that Jon knows he is not alone in his room. 

Carefully Jon sits up hoping not to startle whoever had crossed into his threshold. Once his eyes adjust to the darkness he sees her, barely, a woman sitting at the end of his bed. She looks like she doesn’t even know that he is there. Her skin is as white as the snow itself, and her hair was a deep brown. Atop it sat a broken crown, its dark edges tearing into the skin, around it were woven in blue roses. 

“M’Lady…” She doesn’t look like a commoner, and she is dressed in the colors of house stark.

His words do not move her and she still sits humming. There are ghosts in Winterfell, and he hides under his blankets like a coward. When he musters up the courage to look again she is gone, but he swears he can still smell the roses.

Robb thinks he is completely mad the next day when he rushes outside in the morning to tell him the tales. Jon thinks he is just acting so Theon does not judge him. Theon sneers at him, and Jon doesn’t like him all that much. Jon does what he thinks is the next best thing he follows Old Nan around asking her questions about ghosts, but her memory is foggy and she insists on him resting.

Jon waits for her that night. She never comes.

A month passes and Jon snow hears and sees nothing, but he does his best at not saying a word. Even for his age he knows that it would be unwise to give Lady Stark any ammunition to think that he might be touched. He does not want to be sent away. He does not want to be away from Arya or his Lord Father. Jon would rather live in his brother’s shadow as long as he wasn’t told to leave.

It’s that night that he hears her. “Promise me.” The ghost woman whispers in the air. Jon can’t see her but he knows she is there. Jon wastes no time in throwing his small clothes back on and running barefoot towards the hall. The voice carries down the hallway and he follows it, down into the depths of the castle. Jon dodges guards and almost has a run in with Ser Rodrick Castle but he manages to squirm by undetected. 

The kings of old walk these halls, Jon remembers. He follows the words down into the crypts where the dead lay. He takes a torch that remains lit and enters. He walks by statues of those who have come and gone. Jon stops by the statue of woman who was buried amongst kings. Lyanna Stark, house winterfell, and first of her name, Jon remembers. He never met her, she died in Robert’s Rebellion. He remembers his lord father’s face when he speaks of her, or whenever he looks at his sister Arya. He stares at the statue long and hard, his brain striving to make the connection. She looked familiar, like something he had seen in a dream, but women made of stone do not dream. He is small but he reaches out and touches her.

“Promise me.” Jon whispers to the woman of stone.

“Jon,” 

His name makes his heart stop and he whirls around quicker than he would have liked and trips. He is caught by Lord Eddard Stark’s strong arm. 

“I’m sorry, Father,” He apologizes in a quick huff, the way only he can. He bows his head and tries to be a proper boy even thought he is nothing but a bastard.

“It must be some folly that brings you down here in the dead of night.” Lord Eddard says calmly helping him get his bearing.  
“I heard voices.” Jon admits.

“There are dead in these walls, they are very old.” He says in reverence looking over at the statue of Lyanna Stark. “Best get you to bed before you are seen out of it.”

Jon nods and for a brief moment takes his Lord Father’s hand, on the way out of the crypt he swears he smells roses.


End file.
